Six Things To Do About the BP Gulf Disaster

On May 30, people gathered in New Orleans' Jackson Square to protest against the great oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP has failed repeatedly to stop the gushing oil disaster
in the Gulf. It's trying again—using a technique that risks making matters
worse—and saying that there may be no repair until August, when it finishes
drilling relief wells.

The media, meanwhile, is treating much of the news from
the Gulf like it's a contest between the "Drill Baby Drill" crowd and
the Obama administration. It's not. It's a national disaster.

While those of us outside the world of deep-sea
engineering have limited knowledge, there are some things we can and should
demand:

The federal government needs to take charge and put BP under temporary receivership as recommended by
former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. BP was dishonest about the quantities of oil flowing into the Gulf, and their
initial repair efforts have failed. The federal government is accountable to the American people, and it needs to decide what
to do to protect our nation's water, wildlife, and shorelines of the Gulf (and wherever
else the oil travels). As Reich argues,
receivership would allow the government
to act with full authority and accountability, and to call on all the
expertise available (not just BP's) to help make the difficult calls.

The cleaning and protection of coastlines needs to be ramped up.
Whether that means hiring more local fishers, bringing in National Guard
troops, or deploying citizen brigades on the beaches, the response needs to be
aggressive and sustained. Even if the oil stopped flowing today, the
contamination would continue washing up in sensitive coastal regions for months
or longer. All workers should have training, equipment, and protective gear to
keep them from being sickened by the oil and the toxic dispersants.

There should be generous pay for the armies of bird-rescuers and beach
cleaners, and those out protecting shorelines with boats and booms. Families who are the immediate victims of the disaster
should get first crack at the jobs, and their wages will help sustain the region through this economic storm. Charge BP (and any
other companies responsible for the disaster) the full costs for as long as it
takes to get this region clean, whether it's months or years.

Use the least toxic chemical dispersants and insist
on full disclosure of the makeup of all the dispersants being dumped into the
Gulf. The U.S. EPA should determine which dispersants, if any, are used based
on the long-term health of the Gulf and its shorelines and estuaries, not based
on which companies have ties with BP or which chemicals will be most likely to hide the effects and protect BP from
embarrassing images of oil slicks. Use emergency powers, if necessary, to get a full disclosure of the makeup of the dispersants from BP or whoever is refusing to release it.
Without this information, there's no way to keep the emergency responders safe,
to properly treat stricken birds and sea life, and to assess the long-term
damage.

Boycott BP, but also other oil companies. They are all
spilling oil (see what Shell is doing in Nigeria, for example),
and causing direct environmental damage. But using oil, no matter what company pumps it, is putting our entire planet at risk through disruption of
the climate. Melting ice caps, changing rainfall patterns, mega-storms and
failing crops are already happening, but that is only the beginning if we start
hitting climate tipping points. We must kick our fossil fuel addiction.
This is our part of the solution.

Begin a massive conversion to energy efficiency and
renewable energy. There is a lot of
blame to go around for this disaster, from the practice of putting
cronies in charge of regulation to the corporate culture of putting profits
above all else. But this disaster is above all happening because the oil that is easy to get
to is already taken. Now oil companies are trying to get the oil that's hard to
reach, from deep under the oceans, from hostile regions of the world, and from dirty and destructive sources like tar sands. We've entered a time that
analyst and author Michael Klare calls "The Age of Tough Oil," and
the costs-human, environmental, economic, and strategic-are rising with each
new barrel. Making our economy more energy efficient and building a renewable
energy infrastructure offer immediate benefits in terms of jobs and economic
stimulus and will sustain generations to come.

John Francis on How to Break Our Addiction to Oil:
When an oil spill coated birds in San Francisco Bay 40 years ago, he
quit driving. Then he quit speaking. Madeline Ostrander asked him what
he learned in that process that can help us deal with the BP oil spill.

Of Wind Farms and Oil Spills: On April 28, the news headlines offered a stark comparison between two possible futures for energy production in America.